'Tis the season for promises ahead of this weekend's BC election

Come election season, politicians seeking reelection or office for the first time make a lot of promises. Some we know they’ll keep. Others? It depends. Politicians make promises because they will impact voters’ beliefs about the policies they will implement if elected and serve as an indicator of their capabilities to govern. Incumbents have the advantage of the rearview mirror. They can ask voters to look at past performance. Even freshmen candidates for an incumbent  party seeking to prove their mettle to constituents can bank on that party’s record, in part or in whole—but that also means being accountable for the promises it has broken. In all cases, promises are a kind of promissory note in exchange for representation.

Bigger, fiscally weighty promises more often are made by candidates from a majority already in power. Makes sense, given they have more levers and pursestrings at their discretion to make them come true. Some promises will benefit voters right across the province, some are made to boost candidate favorability in swing districts or districts with strong party legacies but weaker candidates.

In this election, NDP candidates in the CRD have a party record that can be scrutinized. Ambitious promises made in the run-up to the election to address long-standing issues facing constituents that have persisted on their watch—lack of family doctors, cost of living, housing prices—can rightly be viewed with some degree of skepticism. Those are the ones the NDP will need to keep. Or not. They wouldn’t be the first party to renege on election-time promises.

We’re all still waiting for election reform.

As Oct. 19 nears, here’s a rundown by policy area, of some of the promises provincial candidates in the CRD may be clarifying.

Housing: caps and rebates

The NDP’s promises simply build on existing programs. The $400 renters debate for BC households with a $60K income and less being promised by Esquimalt-Colwood NDP candidate Darlene Rotchford was implemented in 2023. One of their new campaign angles is a cap on rent increases to inflation. Ravi Parmar in Langford Highlands has chimed in on the NDP’s Sept. 29 announcement that if elected premier, David Eby will deliver a “ household relief” payment($1K for households and $500 for individuals, starting next year).

The NDP chose the Surrey Cloverdale riding, where two sitting MLAs are squaring off, to announce their $1.9B aim to finance up to 40% of the sale price on select developments. Buyers would repay loans when they sold their units and the province would cash in on 40% of any increased equity in the home—basically, making the provincial government  lender-speculators. The NDP wants to subsidize insurance for landlords and double the existing speculation and vacancy tax for foreign homeowners to 3%.

The Conservatives are offering a tax rebate for renters and homeowners effective 2026 and an immediate $1,500 exemption per month of rent or mortgage interest costs to be taken out of provincial income taxes . That exemption would take $900M from public coffers in the first year alone. The Conservatives have promised the creation of a “civic infrastructure renewal fund” that will provide $1B per year to municipalities that allow small-scale multi-unit housing on a minimum of two-thirds of residential lands.

The units in question are all market value and while they may address overall unit availability they do nothing to address affordability.

The Conservatives also promise maximum six-month rezoning and development permit approval times and three-month building permit wait times for all builds. This feels like overreach, given that zoning approvals are ultimately the purview of municipalities and are often re-visited as issues arise.

Addressing the affordability issue head on, the Greens are promising $1.5B annually to build 26K units of non-market housing a year, including 3K units for Indigenous people across the province. Party leader and Victoria-Beacon Hill candidate Sonia Fursteneau is also promising a $500M top-up of the rental protection fund to protect existing affordable rentals and to cap rent increases once a tenant leaves. They would increase funding to $164M for the Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters (SHELTER) and Rental Assistance Program (RAP) annually and promise to add a 2% tax on homes valued over $3M to $7M, providing $650M in infrastructure funding to municipalities.

Education for all?

The Conservatives released their education plan on Oct. 13. It promises very little beyond reinstating antiquated, standardized measures of academic achievement. They neglect to attach concrete budget lines to their plan to “restore excellence to BCs education system.” In that plan the Conservatives reiterate their desire to remove SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) inclusivity programming from schools and replace it with an anti-bullying policy. SOGI, designed to address discrimination and bullying and to create a supportive environment for LGBTQ students was endorsed by the NDP government in 2016.

They have promised to expand the $10-a-day model to unlicensed daycares in homes, offices and public buildings.

Both the NDP and the Greens have promised to improve student-to-counsellor ratios in BC schools. That ratio currently stands at 693:1.

Greens also promise to implement a universal school food program that will deliver free lunches to all students. The BC Public Health Association recently touted the benefits of nutritional meals to young learners. The Greens say they will invest $5M in the prevention of sexual violence at schools and will allocate at least $250M to expand childcare space creation for children and infants under five.

The bogey of health care

A two-tiered system has consistently been on the message board for Conservative candidates across the CRD. Victoria-Beacon Hill candidate Tim Thielmann has repeatedly expressed his support for “a hybrid system or a two-tier system.” In a Sept. 25 discussion on health care,” Thielman said if you have a new federal government, we bring in, on the payment side, more opportunities to pay out-of-pocket or for private insurance.”

The Hospital Employees’ Union has called the Conservatives plan to eliminate $4.1B from the health system a “wreckless blueprint for public healthcare’s future.”

In the riding of Oak Bay-Gordon Head, an NDP government would work with Island Health to deliver care for seniors on the site of the former Oak Bay Lodge at 2251 Cadboro Bay Road. This isn’t new news. It piggy-backs onto work the CRD has already been doing in its review of the feasibility of the proposed project since 2021, though it may seal the deal. Oak Bay-Gordon Head is the riding where Diana Gibson is hoping to fill large shoes left by retiring MLA and cabinet minister Murray Rankin. Her Green challenger, Lisa Gunderson has vowed to streamline a bloated health-care administration and create a single health authority for the province. For Gunderson, a centralization would shift the focus of health professionals from paperwork to patients.

The NDP say it  will deliver 5,400 more long-term care beds for elders and the Conservatives, 5K by 2030. While the Greens haven’t released numbers on long-term care beds, they vow to expand access to home care as an alternative to long-term care and improve transparency and accountability in publicly funded care homes.

Reducing cost of living is a pan-party issue

Most candidates on the campaign trail have addressed the soaring costs of food, fuel, heating—the costs of just getting by. To ease the pressure, the NDP would cut taxes by about $1K for households and more than $500 for individuals by exempting an additional $10K of individual income from provincial income tax each year. The New Democrats say they will eliminate BC’s carbon tax on consumers if the federal mandate requiring the tax is removed by the party that wins the next federal election.

The Conservatives will also eliminate the carbon tax to offset a steep increase in the basic necessities. Mike Harris, Conservative candidate for Langford has said, “the skyrocketing cost of living has made life increasingly challenging. Poor governance has worsened these problems, making everyday life difficult for families and individuals alike.”

If you want to improve outcomes for low-income people, you also need to reduce consumer taxes, otherwise they are still paying, pro rata, more for consumer goods than people in higher income brackets.

The Greens are the only ones looking to increase taxes.

They are proposing to implement a tax increase of 22% for people earning more than $350K and raise the food crisis grant to $200 a month from the current $40 per month, as a means to alleviate cost of living pressures.

Watch for more candidate campaign promises and analysis on the environment in Part II of Promises, promises, followed by Part III, a look at public safety, child care and elderly care .